Quote:
Originally Posted by DupleMeter
The best thing you can do for yourself is to use a reference mix to gut check everything you're doing. By that I mean, choose a commercially released song in the same general style & same general feel as the one you are mixing and go back & forth between it & your mix to highlight the differences. It will help you keep a target clearly in sight as you mix and let you know when you begin to approach it.
Check out these 5 videos put together by Izotope & Berklee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Gtbt2oxso (this is 1 of 5, the other 4 should be in the sidebar as related). In one section they go in depth into the reference mix process.
And. Use a spectrum analyzer (FFT) to see what your EQ looks like vs what a commercial release looks like. That will help you train your ears to know what you're hearing and to know how to get to what you want to hear. Here's a very nice free one that also is a great meter plugin: http://www.voxengo.com/product/span/ |
I'm by no means an expert when it comes to mixing or mastering but definitely the single biggest thing that helped me get more consistent was creating a good personal reference CD and getting to know this CD extremely well and how it sounds on different systems.
While mixing, I'll have some of my references mixes pulled up into some of the DAW tracks so I can A/B all the time.